by Richard Fox
Director Ormond gripped the table edge, fear in his eyes.
“Tolan, who are they? You spent years in wild space. Tell me what we’re dealing with,” Ormond said. He tapped icons in the holo, pulling up a live feed of the linked diamond cruisers and the domed ship holding over New Exeter.
“I…I’ve never seen anything like this before. Wild-space fleets are full of dregs, decades old and bought off the black market.” Tolan shook his head.
“Bring the prisoner,” Ormond said over his shoulder to a guard. The woman hurried away.
The director reached into the holo and zoomed away from the planet. Civilian ships streamed away from Albion toward the half-dozen nexus points to nearby stars. Tight red formations of enemy ships advanced on the same paths and at faster speeds.
“They’ve brought more ships than the entire Reich fleet,” Ormond said. “Hell of a lot more than what we have…and we’re spread out over a half-dozen systems.” The old man turned his gaze to Tolan.
“We can’t win,” Tolan said. “The star forts are gone. Excelsior and her battle group are destroyed…They have ground troops here, Brighton, Herford.”
“None of their ships are on course to Siam.” Ormond rapped his knuckles against the table edge. “I want you to take your ship there and find Admiral Sartorius. Tell them not to return home. Get to Cathay, Indus, anywhere. By this time tomorrow, they will be the last of our military. The colony worlds won’t last long.”
“But what about the King? He may—”
Ormond grabbed a fistful of Tolan’s shirt and yanked him closer. The fear was gone from the director’s eyes; his features were set, determined.
“You think I’m asking you to do this? Albion will need hope to survive. So long as Sartorius and the 11th are still fighting, we have a chance.” Ormond let the spy go.
“Sir?” The guard pushed a bound Polonius up to the table, the bottom half of his face covered by a black gag that kept his jaw shut.
“These are your people, aren’t they?” Ormond asked. “What do you want? Why won’t they speak with us?”
Polonius looked over the holo, then chuckled within his gag.
“You have an answer for me?” Ormond’s hand went to a pistol on his belt.
The prisoner nodded. The guard touched a fingertip to the gag and it fell slack around Polonius’ neck.
“You will be ruled,” he said with a sneer.
“Give me an answer or you’ll find out just what Albion does to spies.” Ormond drew his pistol.
Polonius stared daggers at the director and laughed through clenched teeth. Veins popped out over his forehead and temples.
“Sir…” Tolan reached for the flex-blade flush against his belt.
Polonius grunted and his hands ripped through the cuffs with a snap of breaking metal. He lunged for Ormond.
Tolan snatched the flex-blade off his belt and flicked it to snap it into a rigid knife. He threw it at Polonius and impaled the man through his left eye. Polonius fell to the floor face-first, the impact driving the blade out the back of his skull. His corpse twitched and kicked for a moment, then went still.
Ormond backed into a workstation, pistol trained on the body. The flat-footed guard stood over the body, fumbling for a new set of cuffs.
“That’s not possible!” the guard said. “Those cuffs are rated against augmented prisoners and…is it getting hot in here?”
“Get away from him!” Tolan tackled Ormond to the ground.
Polonius’ body erupted into jade flames. A wave of heat singed Tolan’s back and a smell of scorched meat and copper filled the air.
Tolan rolled off of Ormond. All that remained of Polonius was a blackened skeleton and lumps of caramelized flesh. The guard slapped flames off his boots and pants.
“Tolan, you have your orders.” Ormond got to his feet and raised a hand to assure the others in the command center that he was unharmed.
“What about you and the rest of the directorate?”
“We have contingency plans for an occupation…but nothing like this. The directorate will frag the castle’s records, then we’ll lead the resistance. Get out of here. God’s speed, Tolan.”
“Yes, sir.” Tolan backed out of a door, his eyes on the blackened corpse and the fearful faces of his fellow intelligence operatives that he was about to leave behind.
****
Thorvald, Salis, and Lucan ran down a hallway leading to the Angelo Tower, the castle’s fortified bunker. Holding a battle rifle in his hands felt good, like he was finally useful, and it was a welcome change from Royce’s gestalt. The armor’s spirit seethed in the back of Thorvald’s mind, pulling away from Thorvald’s consciousness like a child that did not want to be held.
The sound of blaster fire echoed up the hallway.
“That’s not coming from the St. Angelo,” Lucan said. “That’s the royal gardens.”
“I hear blaster pistols—several.” Salis gave her handgun a brief shake. “Must be ours.”
Thorvald skidded to a halt and peeked around a corner. The blast door to the gardens was shut, but a wide circle had been cut through it; the center of the reinforced metal door lay flat against the floor where it fell.
In the gardens beyond the broken doorway, blaster fire crisscrossed between the trees and bushes imported from Earth. Red-armored Daegon fired over and around the fallen trunk of an oak bearing the carved names of royal children. Yellow bolts from Genevan and Albion weapons struck hunks of bark and splintered wood from the invaders’ cover.
Thorvald shouldered his rifle and swung around the corner. He ran for the blast door, firing off quick bursts into the Daegon. He shot down three before they realized they were being flanked and turned their attention to Thorvald. The Genevan slid forward, red bolts cracking over his head as his feet hit the wall and his momentum carried him upright. He stuck his rifle around the portal edge and blind-fired the rest of the weapon’s battery on full auto. The rattle shook his arms, but his augmented strength kept the weapon aimed at the enemy.
The weapon ran empty and he pulled it back. Lucan and Salis charged through the opening, weapons blazing.
Thorvald grabbed the edge of the opening and swung into the garden. A Daegon leaned against a tree, one arm pressed against a smoldering wound on his stomach. The Genevan grabbed his empty rifle by the barrel and swung the weapon like a club. The butt connected with the invader’s head, snapping it aside with a crack of broken armor.
Thorvald grabbed the falling Daegon by the wrists and used his grip to swing the bayonet-tipped rifle up, impaling a warrior charging the Genevan from behind. Thorvald landed a hook to the dying Daegon and sent him to the ground. He whirled around, reloading the battery in his rifle as he searched for the enemy.
Salis and Lucan stood surrounded by dead red-armored troops, their weapons smoking.
“Royce!” came from a circle of boulders in the center of the gardens.
Thorvald ran over—he’d correct whoever called to him later.
A half-dozen Albion soldiers formed a perimeter around a sunken fire pit ringed by several curved benches. Two Genevan guards lay dead inside the circle, their armor leaking blood, mangled by blaster fire. Blue-armored bodies littered the gardens as small fires burned through flowerbeds and tree bark. The smell of sap and smoke crept through Thorvald’s faceplate. A man with gray-black hair holding an ornate pistol kneeled next to a woman in white lace and silk. She lay face down, blood staining her left side and seeping into the dark soil.
King Randolph III looked up from the dead Queen Calista to Thorvald. His eyes were half-dilated and his skin pale. Thorvald’s gestalt sent a chill of panic down his spine as its sensors scanned the King. The King was wounded, bleeding from several cuts to his legs and back. Second-degree burns on his neck from a near blaster miss oozed blood.
The wail of a crying child came from inside a rough protective circle formed by a pair of dead soldiers, the bodies propped on their sides. Salis reached down
and lifted up a filthy little boy, the three-year-old Prince Aidan. She turned, keeping the child from seeing his dead mother, and pressed a thumb to the boy’s neck. A tiny dose of tranquilizer stopped his cries. Salis cradled Aidan in an arm and her armor shifted into a cocoon around him.
“Sire,” Thorvald said, grabbing the King by the shoulders to steady him, “we have to get you out of here—”
“No, Royce, they’ve been after me since the first attack.” The King’s words were slurred; he was going into shock. “Calista…they killed her…you must take Aidan.”
Thorvald’s armor mixed together a concoction of stimulants, blood coagulators, and anti-shock medication. When the drug injection was ready, his right gauntlet squeezed against his forearm. He pressed his palm against the side of the King’s neck and took in more biometric readings as the drugs transferred with a hiss.
“I’m not Roy—”
“You take him!” Randolph poked Thorvald in the chest weakly, then pointed to a boulder. “Old tunnel. Grandfather built them.”
“Lucan, under there. Should be a passage to the catacombs.” Thorvald held the King steady as the other Genevan gripped the rock that was taller than he was and shifted it aside with a grunt. He swept dirt off a hatch with his foot, then lifted it up. The hatchway was just big enough for a single person.
Red bolts snapped overhead, fired by a pack of Daegon at the breached door. Thorvald put his body between the King and the attackers. Lucan joined the soldiers taking cover around the rocks and firing on the Daegon.
“Royce…” said the King, putting a bloody hand on the side of Thorvald’s face, “I can’t go any further. You will save my sons—”
A sealed door on the other side of the gardens buckled against an impact.
“We will buy you time.” The King tried to shove Thorvald toward the open hatch. “Go!”
+Obey!+ Thorvald’s gestalt shouted into his mind.
“Yes…sire.” The Genevan pointed at Salis, still holding Prince Aidan, then to the hatch. “Lucan, can you—”
“Get going. There’s no one else that can move the boulder over the hatch,” Lucan said.
Salis stepped onto the ladder leading into the dark below, moving quickly and ably even with just one arm available.
“Don’t tell me where you’re going,” Lucan said. “Just get the Prince to safety.”
Thorvald got onto the ladder and climbed down, stopping when his head was clear of the hatch. He looked up at Lucan and saw energy bolts from Daegon weapons zipping through the air from more than one direction.
“I’ll remember you to the House,” Thorvald said, giving an old Genevan farewell offered when death was close.
“Tell my wife and daughters I died well,” Lucan said and slammed the hatch. The moan of the boulder moving over metal drowned out the sound of blaster fire as Thorvald, Salis, and the sleeping Prince descended into darkness.
****
Lucan took a rifle from a dead soldier and checked the charge—eight shots left. King Randolph leaned against the same boulder Lucan used for cover. The King held the dead Queen’s hand, his breathing strained, uneven. Lucan’s gestalt sent him a readout of the King’s condition. Broken ribs had pierced his left lung with bone fragments. He’d last for several more painful hours before succumbing to his wounds.
Another thunderclap bent the doorway to the gardens. Lucan knew the King’s injuries were almost irrelevant. The enemy would break through in minutes.
“Lucan…Royce’ll protect my boys. He will.” The King gently put his wife’s hand down and raised his pistol.
Lucan aimed his rifle over the boulder. The pathway Thorvald and Salis used to escape with the Prince was just beneath the rock. The longer he kept the Daegon away, the better chance they had to reach someplace safe. He wouldn’t tell the King who was in Royce’s armor. Genevans believed it was better to die with hope in one’s heart.
“Aim for the neck of the big one,” Lucan said to the remaining soldiers. The King grunted and tried to get up, but Lucan pushed him back down. “Stay there, My Lord. We’ll get you out of here soon as we can.”
The doors buckled beneath a blow that split the air loud enough to pop Lucan’s eardrums. A siege warrior ducked beneath the doorway and charged forward. Daegon came behind him, roaring war cries and with bayonets levelled at the Albion soldiers.
Lucan took careful aim, timed the hammer-wielding giant’s steps, and fired. His shot smashed through a glowing eye lens. The shot rattled inside the helmet, batting the warrior’s head from side to side. The giant pitched forward and dug a shallow trench through the garden’s soil before coming to a stop. The Daegon continued their charge.
“For the King!” shouted a soldier next to Lucan as he fired on the invaders.
“For Albion!” King Randolph hauled himself to his feet and shot a Daegon in the forehead.
Lucan fired his last shot, then grabbed the rifle by the red-hot barrel and raised it over his head. That the Daegon weren’t firing as they charged meant only one thing to him—they wanted the King alive.
The Genevan swung the rifle down and onto the hands of a charging warrior. The butt hit with a satisfying crack of armor and bone, deflecting the serrated bayonet to the side. Lucan shoulder-checked the warrior, knocking him into the legs of two Daegon behind him. A warrior stumbled forward and into Lucan’s reverse stroke. The blow crushed the warrior’s throat.
Lucan grabbed the dying warrior and jerked him into the path of a lunging bayonet. The blade stabbed through his back and out his chest. The Daegon holding the impaled rifle held on as the weight of his fellow dragged him forward.
The Genevan grabbed the invader by the front of his faceplate and rammed his head into the boulder with a crunch. Lucan whirled around and parried a bayonet strike, sending the blade bouncing off the rock. Lucan backhanded the attacker, then kicked him in the crotch so hard his feet left the ground.
A blow pitched Lucan forward, and his personal shield fogged with static across his face. He looked up and saw a rifle pointed directly at his head, then the weapon swung aside…straight at the King.
“No!” Lucan slapped the rifle aside and the bolt struck the boulder in a shower of sparks and fragments. He scrambled back, shielding the King where he lay against the rock.
Daegon formed a half-circle around Lucan and the King, jabbing at the Genevan with their bayonets like dogs baiting a bear. Other soldiers removed weapons from wounded and dead Albion soldiers. The invaders stabbed each soldier in the base of the neck before moving on to the next.
A Daegon warrior a head taller than the others pushed through the throng around Lucan. This one had four yellow lines angled up the left side of his helmet and a red cape clasped to his pauldrons. One of his hands rested on the pommel of a gladius sheathed on his belt; the other held an ornate pistol.
“Give him to me,” came from speakers on the warrior’s throat. “You’ve earned your life. Go back to Geneva and herald our arrival.”
“Never.” Lucan shook his head.
The leader said something in his own language and the other Daegon cheered. He handed the pistol over to a warrior, then put both hands on the side of his helmet. It came loose with a hiss of air. His skin was a deep purple, his face otherwise perfectly human. Thin cables ran from the back of his head down the side of his neck. Golden irises looked at Lucan with a hint of disdain.
“I am Tiberian. I will have your name for a wager,” the leader said.
“Save yourself,” the King said. “There’s nothing you can do for me now.”
“My Lord, I ask you not to insult me,” Lucan whispered.
“I am Tiberian,” he repeated, pounding his fists against his chest. “Beat me and you both shall go free. My charge demands the King or my life. Name yourself or they will end this.”
A Daegon warrior gave his rifle a quick shake.
The Genevan stood up, hands hung loosely at his waist.
“Lucan.”
&n
bsp; “A word without a face is nothing,” Tiberian said.
Lucan’s armor pulled back from his head, adding another layer to his shoulders.
“Lucan. Let the King live. He can’t fight anymore. His people will never forgive you for his murder.”
“No…I can…” the King said weakly. Blood trickled from his mouth, staining his beard and shirt. He coughed and tried to grasp the pistol lying in the dirt next to him. A Daegon stabbed the tip of his bayonet through the trigger guard and dragged the weapon away.
“He’s dying,” Lucan said.
“Then you’d better kill me quick.” Tiberian’s cape fell to the ground. He grabbed his gladius and lunged forward, sweeping the blade toward Lucan’s throat.
Lucan reared back, caught almost flat-footed by the Daegon’s speed. He used the momentum to bring a foot back, then ducked under a stab to his throat. The Genevan swung his foot around low to the ground and caught Tiberian’s ankle with his kick. The blow rang with metal on metal, but the Daegon stayed on his feet.
Tiberian flicked the gladius toward Lucan’s face. His armor scrambled up his throat and intercepted the cutting edge. The Daegon laughed briefly, then stepped away, the sword held in high guard, the tip waving in the air.
Lucan popped to his feet and raised his arms into a boxer’s stance. His gestalt retreated from his face…and whispered to him.
+I am stronger than his edge.+ The brief contact against his armor was enough to gauge the sword’s capability.
Tiberian whipped the blade around and slashed at Lucan’s neck. The Genevan kept his feet planted and let the gladius strike his forearm. The blade twisted at the impact and bounced up. Lucan drove his armored fist into Tiberian’s mouth, but a flash of an energy shield deflected Lucan’s punch. A cloud of white particles hid Tiberian’s face from view and Lucan snapped a kick into the man’s knee. The cloud flashed down and almost stopped his blow.
The kick buckled Tiberian’s knee, sending him stumbling to the side. Lucan charged after him, trying to wrestle him to the ground. The Daegon planted a foot and then jumped straight up. He hooked a kick around and hit Lucan just below his eye.
